Items tagged with Mac OS X
The notion that Mac systems are immune to malware is just plain wrong. Sure, Macs might be less susceptible to malware than Windows-based PCs, but they are certainly not exempt from security threats. Proving otherwise, two different security outfits have put out warnings about separate threats targeting Mac users. One of them pertains to ransomware, where a user's documents and files are encrypted and held hostage until a ransom is paid, and the other is a spyware application that sniffs out sensitive information.Image Source: Apple Starting with the former, security outfit Fortinet said its labs recently discovered a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) called MacRansom that uses a web portal hosted...
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It's being called a worse threat than Heartbleed, but unlike Heartbleed, "Shellshock" can affect home users just as well as servers. The bug is tied to the Bash Unix shell, one that's pretty much de facto in Linux, and can be found in all Mac OS X releases. While you'll be in a Bash environment whenever you open up a terminal, there are many cases where Bash will run in the background as well - such as with SSH, which constantly listens for connections. The bug was reported to Red Hat last week and published just yesterday. The report reads: "A flaw was found in the way Bash evaluated certain specially crafted environment variables. An attacker could use this flaw to override or bypass environment...
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Apple CEO Tim Cook took a risk by going to WWDC without any hardware announcements -- no new iPad or iPhone, for example -- but in the absence of new gadgets, the Cupertino outfit generated some excitement by overhauling Mac OS X 10. The new version -- OS X 10.10 Yosemite -- brings to the table a redesigned UI with a few slick new features. Best of all for Mac users, OS X 10.10 will be rolled out for free in the fall. Yosemite has a flatter look than Mavericks, which isn't surprising since Apple did the same with iOS in version 7. One of the features Apple was really excited about was the inclusion of semi-translucent windows that adjust their color temperature based on the background. Toolbars...
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To anyone who took the day off yesterday and/or crawled out from under that cozy rock that's kept you isolated from the Internet, welcome back to the online world. You didn't miss a whole lot. Surface 2 and Surface 2 Pro became available in 21 markets, and Nokia launched its first Windows tablet. Oh, and Apple rebooted its iPad family, though not before turning technology writers on their collective heads and spinning them dizzy by announcing it would not charge a dime for Mac OS X Mavericks for Macs or for iWorks for the new iPad Air and second generation iPad mini, which will come with the productivity suite pre-installed. The resulting headlines are varied, but the content is mostly the same....
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When Apple rolled out Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the company claimed the operating system introduced over 200 new features to the Mac platform, but reduced battery life wasn't supposed to be one of them. Nevertheless, a large number of users have taken to Apple's support forum to complain about major dips in battery life after installing Mountain Lion. "I upgraded to Mountain Lion and now my battery life is about half of what it was before upgrading," the opening post reads. Others quickly chimed in with the same complaint. One Mac user said he used to "easily" get a full day of use on his 13-inch MacBook Pro before the battery would give up the ghost, but with Mountain Lion installed, he's...
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While nothing is yet official, early estimates have Apple's newly released Max OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) off to a roaring start. Furthermore, if the preliminary numbers are accurate, Mountain Lion could become the fastest deployed operating system of all time, regardless of platform. That's impressive. Web tracking firm Chitka ran the numbers using a bit of rough math and determined that 2.11 million Mac users are now in possession of Mountain Lion. That's based, in part, on Apple's June 2012 announcement that there are 66 million Mac users in the wild. "Using this figure, if we assume that 90 percent of these users paid to upgrade, OS X Mountain Lion generated $38 million in revenue for Apple...
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The next version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system is going to hit the streets well before Microsoft's Windows 8 OS. In fact, it's just around the corner. It's called Mountain Lion, the ninth major version of Mac OS X (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion are the other eight), and it will be available in July from the Mac App Store for a measly $20. Mountain Lion, which Apple touts as "Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac.," introduces over 200 new features, including a new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration, Game Center, and a whole bunch more. Apple's iCloud will also play an integral role in Mountain Lion, making...
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A few years ago, an upstart manufacturer named Psystar made headlines when it began offering low-end x86 systems loaded with Mac OS X. Psystar was predictably sued by Apple, but offered an EFI tool to make it easier for anyone with a 'Hackintosh' to run OS X. The company never contested Apple's charge that it had violated the company's copyrights, but instead claimed on appeal that Apple's Software License Agreement (SLA) was uneforceable. That argument has been rejected by a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit. Judge Schroeder wrote the opinion for the three judge panel. Psystar's argument hinged on the idea that the Copyright Act protected Apple from unauthorized copying and distribution...
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For those of you rocking a Mac system with OS X Lion, there's a new update available that fixes a handful of issues. It's actually the first software update for Apple's latest and greatest OS, and it comes just a few weeks after launching OS X Lion. Here's what's included in the 10.7.1 download: Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical out Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion Apple recommends that all OS X Lion users run out...
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Apple today announced that the next major version of its operating system -- Mac OS X Lion -- will ship in July for $29 and will only be available as a download (4GB) in the Mac App Store. That's substantially less than the normal selling price of $129, though it won't be offered as a boxed retail package. What Lion will bring to the table are 250 new features, many of them representing Apple's "best thinking from iPad," with a handful of them talked about during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Chief among them is a new Launchpad designed to give users instant access to apps, just like on the iPad. Open windows fade away and are replaced with a full screen display of all the apps...
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Apple has finally responded to the Mac Defender malware that has infected a number of Mac users, but while Apple took considerable time before it took any action, the malware writer did not: he already has a new variant available that is more dangerous than the original. The new malware has a new name for its fake antivirus component: MacGuard. Previously, two variants of Mac Defender were dubbed Mac Security and Mac Protector. Intego, which identified the first version of the malware, discovered the new variant via a poisoned Google search early Wednesday morning. The new variant is split into two parts. The first part is a downloader program which is installed into the user’s Applications...
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All this time we thought the way to one-up Apple's iPad was to build a Windows- or Android-based tablet with all the features the iPad neglects. Boy were we off, or so hopes a company called Axon Logic. Never heard of them? If history is any indication, you soon will. That's because Axon has gone and put together a tablet -- the Axon Haptic -- that's primed for end users to slap a Darwin OS onto its slate, such as Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Should this thing catch on, and perhaps even if it doesn't, you can bet Apple's legal team will be ready to go the distance. But more on the OS in a minute. From strictly a hardware standpoint, here's what you get: Intel Atom N270 processor (1.6GHz) 10.1-inch...
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With the latest iteration of its 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops, Apple finally jumped onto the Intel Core i3 and Core i5 bandwagon—bringing its flagship line of laptops up to the same performance level as the Windows-based competition (the 13-inch MacBook Pro laptops still use Intel Core 2 Duo processors). With a starting price of $1,799 for the 15-inch model, and $2,299 for the 17-inch version, MacBook Pros are far from your garden-variety bargain-basement laptops. We had the opportunity to take a look at the base 15-inch MacBook Pro model, which comes with a 2.4GHz Core i5 processor, 4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB hard drive, DVD±RW DL optical drive, and switchable...
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With the latest iteration of its 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops, Apple finally jumped onto the Intel Core i3 and Core i5 bandwagon—bringing its flagship line of laptops up to the same performance level as the Windows-based competition (the 13-inch MacBook Pro laptops still use Intel Core 2 Duo processors). With a starting price of $1,799 for the 15-inch model, and $2,299 for the 17-inch version, MacBook Pros are far from your garden-variety bargain-basement laptops. But Macs have always come with a premium price tag—at least when compared against comparably configured Windows systems—and many will argue that their elegant designs and the intuitive user interface are...
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